The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) is collating the progress made on the plan and will share its report with the NITI Aayog.

Two meeting have already been held by DIPP officials to take stock of the steps undertaken so far.

Having recently revised the patent rules to create a conducive environment for startups, the DIPP has also put together a group of 280 experts, including lawyers and consultants, to assist startups in filing their patent applications.

The amended rules provide for expedited services for patent registration and also include the definition of ‘startup’ for passing on the special benefits.

Besides, the government is also conducting an exercise to map incubation centres across the country in order to ascertain state-wise capacities of incubation and spread the startup movement in tier-II and III cities, and focus especially on the north eastern states.

The DIPP recently launched the startup hub along with the startup portal and mobile app to provide a single-point contact for the entire startup ecosystem. The portal will enable startups to avail all the tax benefits announced in the Startup Action Plan. Some of the incentives announced include a tax holiday and ‘inspector rajfree’ regime for three years, capital gains tax exemption and Rs 10,000 crore corpus for funding of startups.

Innovation projects

Injust over four months of launching the Startup Action Plan, the government has identified 93 research proposals by Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) for their innovation potential or possible impact on industry. The proposals have been selected on the basis of their relevance for the industry and businesses.

The DIPP will act as a facilitator between the IITs and the industry in taking forward these research proposals. The proposals were considered under the Ucchattar Avishkar Yojana by the ministries of human resource development (HRD) and science and technology, and the DIPP as part of the Startup Action Plan.

The government has earmarked Rs 250 crore per annum towards fostering “very high quality” research among IIT students. Half of this funding will be contributed by the HRD ministry, 25% by the science and technology ministry and 25% by the DIPP.

Each project will be allocated not more than Rs 5 crore. As of now, the scheme is limited only to the IITs. “One of the main objectives of the programme is to promote research and innovation among the young students…This is for the first time that we are building an industryacademia link in the country,” said a senior government official.